Icosahedral capsid formation by capsomers and short polyions

Kinetical and structural aspects of the capsomer-polyion co-assembly into icosahedral viruses have been simulated by molecular dynamics using a coarse-grained model comprising cationic capsomers and short anionic polyions. Conditions were found at which the presence of polyions of a minimum length was necessary for capsomer formation. The largest yield of correctly formed capsids was obtained at which the driving force for capsid formation was relatively weak. Relatively stronger driving forces, i.e., stronger capsomer-capsomer short-range attraction and/or stronger electrostatic interaction, lead to larger fraction of kinetically trapped structures and aberrant capsids. The intermediate formation was investigated and different evolving scenarios were found by just varying the polyion length. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4799243]